


So we can go back and play pretend

by Pichitinha



Series: What If [1]
Category: To All the Boys I've Loved Before (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fluff, Not Beta Read, What-If, again this is completely movie based, because i want to and i can so yeah, part of a series of some sorts, they'll all probably be small, where i rewrite some movie scenes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:09:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24711367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pichitinha/pseuds/Pichitinha
Summary: What ifLara Jean confronted Peter about his abrupt change at the diner when she said they were just pretending to date."No, what was that? We are pretending, Peter."His eyes flash and he purses his lips, then he sighs. "I know."She lets him go but he doesn't move now. She crosses her arms, hopes her expression is firm. "You asked me to be your fake girlfriend. Why are you mad?"
Relationships: Peter Kavinsky/Lara Jean Song-Covey
Series: What If [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1786567
Comments: 14
Kudos: 198





	So we can go back and play pretend

**Author's Note:**

> hi people! i am back again. this is a short little thing that i finished while trying to finish something else bc that's the procrastinator and adhd life. anyway i have a list of moments from the movie that i always wanted to write a little bit different just to indulge myself and i finally did it for this one scene so i decided to post it and make it a series which i've creatively named "what if" lmao.
> 
> the first few sentences all in italics are taken completely from the movie (i copied work for word from the closed caption) and you can imagine everything up to that point exactly as it happens on the movie.
> 
> title is from the song [alone together](https://open.spotify.com/track/75SixhsPWyRRmtqHeffiXr?si=HdHcgFghQ1aoVy5e2u81Tw) by **fall out boy** one of my absolute favorites by them so i highly recommend it

_ "I think it's funny, you say that you're scared of commitment and relationships, but you don't seem to be afraid to be with me." _

_ "Well, there's no reason to be." _

_ "Yeah? Why's that?" _

_ "'Cause we're just pretending." _

_ "Right, of course, Lara Jean Covey, ladies and gentlemen, you can count on her to be honest, always." _

His expression is almost hurt and then he moves to get the bill and get up, but she holds his arm.

It's very unlike her but she confronts him then. "Wait, what does that mean?"

He shakes his head but still looks bothered. "Nothing, Covey."

She's not strong enough to actually hold him, but she keeps her hand on his wrist, and probably out of respect for her he stays where he is. "No, what was that? We  _ are _ pretending, Peter."

His eyes flash and he purses his lips, then he sighs. "I know."

She lets him go but he doesn't move now. She crosses her arms, hopes her expression is firm. "You  _ asked _ me to be your fake girlfriend. Why are you mad?"

He denies with his head immediately and relents, shoulders slumping. "I'm not mad, I promise."

And Lara Jean thinks he's telling the truth, but that's worse, because given his reaction, if he's not mad, he's upset. "But you are  _ something _ and I don't understand. What did I say wrong?"

He opens his mouth as if he's going to say something, but closes it again. He doesn't meet her gaze.

"You did nothing wrong, ok, I swear, I'm just being an idiot. Let me pay this and then we can go." And he's up before she can reach him again or say anything else.

She won't give up, though. Lara Jean's determined to know what's going on because she can't think of what could have possibly dampened his mood so fast, especially when all she did was point out the truth. They were having such a good time before, something she was definitely not expecting but was actually thrilled about. The night can't end on this note.

As soon as they're both outside, she turns to him and crosses her arms again.

"We can't go until you tell me what's going on."

He rolls his eyes and moves away with a disbelieving humorless smile. "Oh God, you can't be serious."

"Peter!" she insists.

"Lara Jean, just drop it, ok? It was nothing."

"It wasn't  _ nothing _ because you're clearly still upset."

"I'm not upset!" And he definitely is, she can see it now. There's a knot in her stomach. "I'm frustrated by how much you're insisting on this."

She's not satisfied at all but she won't insist if he's gonna continue acting like this.

"Ok, fine. Good night, then." And then she starts walking out.

He runs in front of her. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing?"

"I'm going home."

"My car is that way," he points in the opposite direction and looks at her as if she's crazy.

"I'm walking."

"You are  _ not _ walking, your dad would kill me. Just let me drive you."

"Not if you're gonna pretend everything's fine as if I'm completely clueless."

"You  _ are _ clueless!" He exasperates.

His eyes widen as soon as he says that.

She gasps offended. "What?"

"I didn't mean it like that." He runs his hand over his face tiredly but before he can say anything else the door behind them opens and a customer walks out. "Ok, let's at least go to my car where we won't be in anybody's way or possibly have an audience."

She agrees begrudgingly and they walk until they're by his car, just another car parked nearby but otherwise with a lot of free space and no one around.

"If this is a ruse to get me into the car, it won't work. I seriously wanna know, Peter, if I said something wrong I wanna know what it was so I can apologize."

He sits on the hood of his car and seems to admit defeat, feet up on the bumper as he rests his elbows on his knees. "You really didn't say anything wrong. And you aren't clueless. I just..."

She waits a few seconds but he doesn't finish. "You just?"

He looks at the sky as he answers. "I thought we were having a moment."

Her eyebrows raise so high she worries the wrinkles on her forehead will never disappear. "A moment?"

"Yes, a moment. You know, a flirty moment. Or whatever."

She blushes all the way to her necks and her entire body freezes. "Oh."

"But either way you were right. We  _ are _ pretending. I'm sorry for getting defensive."

"No, it's fine." She gulps because this is completely uncharted territory.  _ Were _ they having a moment? And if so, what does that mean? "I guess I just don't understand? What about Gen?"

He bites down on his lip and looks guilty. "I know. I'm sorry, I'm being an ass."

She walks to him and puts her hand on his knee against her better judgement. "No, you're not. We can drop it, I'm sorry for pushing."

He snorts. "It's fine. Maybe we should stop apologizing," he suggests with a small smile.

He's taking a segue and she accepts it. "Yeah, that sounds good."

"Can I drive you home, now?"

She smiles and nods, and they enter the car.

The drive to her place is short and they're silent all the way, but despite their little row and awkward moment just before that, it's a comfortable silence. She has questions, many, but she won't ask them today, not when the way he looked at her as he finally answered keeps replaying on her mind and making her dizzy.

When they arrive at her place, though, before she can say bye or even move her arm to open the door, he turns to her.

"I like hanging out with you, Covey."

She blinks and looks at him, his expression open and honest. She has no idea where this is going.

"I like hanging out with you, too."

He laughs a little, just a small release of amused air out of his nose, and shakes his head slightly.

"I'm sorry if I'm not making sense. I did ask you to fake date me. And I did do it because of Gen you know, to get her back. But also maybe I did it just to get her to see that I've moved on?" It actually sounds like he's asking her instead of telling her. "I don't know."

Lara Jean doesn't know either, at all, this seems too complicated for her. But Peter is confiding in her, again, and she has to at least try to help.

"Ok? I guess I still don't understand."

He takes a deep breath. "It's like… it's like we were talking at the diner. Me and Gen don't talk as much as we used to, but we do still talk. I  _ know _ we shouldn't, I know it's not healthy, you're not even the first person that has said that. But she's familiar. She's one of the closest people I've got so if I let go, then what?"

And he doesn't say it, but Lara Jean knows that there's a connection to his dad here. Gen left too, in a way, but she's still there giving him something, and that's better than nothing.

She doesn't say it because she doesn't want to derail his thoughts or bring even more to this than necessary, but she understands it better now.

"I can understand that."

"And in a way… I don't know, it's not like me and Gen were the perfect couple - obviously, otherwise she wouldn't have dumped me for a college guy out of the blue. So it makes sense that we broke up and I even felt a little bit relieved? But I also felt..."

"Rejected?" Lara Jean suggests because that's what she sees on his face.

He snorts sarcastically. "Yeah, that's a pretty good description. The worst part is that I'm not even sure I'm  _ sad _ . I'm not even sure I want her back. It just felt good knowing she got jealous when we kissed - which, I know, it's pretty mean-"

"A little, but then again it's Gen so can we blame you?" Lara Jean is not even thinking as she says it but then she realizes it and looks at him apologetic. "Sorry, not the time to insult your ex."

He seems more apologetic than her, though. "No, no, you're right. She is mean, isn't she? Especially to you."

Lara Jean just shrugs because yes, it's true, but it hardly feels fair to bring it up now.

"Not the point."

"I guess not. But either way." He considers for a while but then gives a tentative smile. "Thanks for listening to me."

"Anytime." And she means it.

"And, since I already went into the whole mess…" His expression is earnest and hopeful, and half of her wants to run away before he can say anything else. "I meant it, before. About it feeling like a moment between us, flirting and all."

She freezes again because she has no idea what she's supposed to say. They got into this whole thing because Peter likes Gen and she likes Josh. But now maybe Peter doesn't really like Gen - and does she still like Josh, come to think of it? She gets how Peter can be confused. She is, too.

"I can see why," she replies because it's true, she can. She rarely ever talks to people about her mom, she certainly never has with Josh, for example, so to trust Peter with it all so easily… she's still confused but she can see how that could have been a  _ moment _ .

God she's having  _ moments _ with her fake boyfriend who maybe doesn't want to get back with his ex and was flirting with her half an hour ago.

"I'm gonna sound like a douchebag again, but in the name of being honest… I think if I had gotten the letter maybe a few weeks later, I wouldn't have asked you to  _ fake _ date me."

He heavily emphasizes the word  _ fake _ and she understands perfectly what he means, so she turns her head straight ahead, her cheeks burning up again.

"Oh."

"Sorry. This is- I'm just putting my foot in my mouth here, huh?"

She shakes her head but still doesn't look at him. "You're not, I'm just surprised. I'm not really sure how to respond to that."

He opens and closes his mouth three times before he actually says something. "We can drop the fake dating thing if you want." There's guilt in his voice. It's like he feels bad for all of it and he doesn't know how she feels.

_ She _ doesn't know how she feels, either.

Does she want to drop the fake dating? She doesn't know.

"Uh..."

"Or..." He sounds unsure and nervous, which is not something Lara Jean is used to when it comes to Peter. "We could continue this for a while, just in case, and so we could still hang out and see if there are any more…" He clears his throat before finishing it. "Moments."

Her heart is beating so fast she can feel it in her fingertips.

He's basically asking her out without asking her out. Which is really ironic since they are dating while not dating.

She takes a deep breath and swallows down her nervousness, because what does she have to lose at this point? If Peter Kavinsky is driving her home from a party while telling her that he flirted with her earlier and thought they were having a  _ moment _ , she might as well take the leap now.

She turns to him trying her best to look confident.

"I can agree to those terms, yes."

He grins almost immediately and she really hopes it's too dark for him to see her blushing -  _ again _ .

He nods and she nods back and they are both trying not to smile like idiots and she has no idea how an evening of baking cupcakes suddenly ended like this.

"In honor of our contract I'm not going to kiss you right now, Covey."

And maybe she squeals at that, but he pretends not to notice it.

She finally opens the car door.

"Goodnight, Peter."

"'Night, Lara Jean."

And as she walks to her house and then up to her room she feels like she's floating and also like she's completely lost.

Did that all really happen?

Her phone pings as she closes her door behind her and it's Peter tagging her on Instagram, the picture that he took where she's kissing his cheek.

> _ Me and BAE _ .

She has to bite back her smile as she types a reply and hugs her phone like she lives in a disney movie.

She hopes there will be moments.

**Author's Note:**

> i feel like this scene could have been a turning point for them but i don't think it could have led immediately to them together bc at this point things are still new and i feel like peter just realized he might like lara jean, so an opening of some sorts to something happening felt more correct to me. once again this was just a little something i wanted to write and i hope you enjoyed it nonetheless - and if you did, please click the kudos button as that's a super easy way of letting me know and please consider leaving me a comment bc that would make me incredibly happy. i am on [tumblr as pichitinha](https://pichitinha.tumblr.com/) and i'd love to hear from you there too. if you want to read more of my covinsky stuff, it's all here on ao3, just [click here](https://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&commit=Sort+and+Filter&work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=revised_at&include_work_search%5Brelationship_ids%5D%5B%5D=25514001&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bexcluded_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bcrossover%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_from%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_to%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_from%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_to%5D=&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&user_id=Pichitinha).


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